Speed and Efficiency: Evacuated Tube Transport

Vehicular roadway and rail traffic move the most people and products, but are unsustainable in the long term due to their inefficiency and negative impact on the environment. Evacuated tube transport reduces energy usage, CO2 emissions, pollution and cost. The magnetically levitated capsules can operate at 1/50 of the energy usage of
electric cars and high-speed trains. The overall cost can be just 1/10 of rail development and ¼ of a new freeway project.

The tube transport system, using a tube 1.5m in diameter, can move 94% of all cargo and passengers at high speeds. The trip between Sydney and Melbourne, Australia would take about
23 minutes at an estimated cruising speed of 2600 km/h. Because of the high speed and efficiency, the cost per kilometer is greatly reduce over traditional transportation. As the distance is increased,
the energy cost reduces further.

The system, unlike railways, would not schedule runs but instead be demand driven 24 hours per day. Traffic will commence only when the route is set and arrival time is calculated in order to avoid conflicts. Ticket price
is based on a fixed charge, distance traveled, time of day, passenger and
luggage weight and energy usage. People, of course, would cost more to transport due to life support requirements. Moving cargo would be very cost effective due to its lower priority.

Transportation costs currently use more than 61% of all the oil used by every industry each year. Rising fuel prices will not affect this evacuated tube transportation method. With no drag or friction resistance,
most acceleration energy can be recovered during deceleration at the end of a journey. This system has a low environmental impact, is not disruptive to wildlife and
have a very small footprint when it comes to land use.

A system servicing the eastern coast regions of Australia with an approximate length of over 1,748 km can transport 150,000 passengers every day and 3.5 billion tons km of cargo every year would cost around
$12 billion plus the cost of the land.

Before this technology can be used to create a world-wide efficient transportation, it should be demonstrated. The Sydney to Newcastle link offers 120 km where the evacuated tube transport system can be tested up to 3000 km/h speeds.

View all the Javascript calculations on the web page by right clicking anywhere and selecting “View Source.” Anyone is welcome to conduct their independent calculations before viewing our data or to check the calculations. Feel free to contact Philip Wong at ioserver@ioserver.com with any corrections, comments or critique of this proposal.

Cruising
Speed km/h. At cruising speed, very little energy is used. Most of the energy is used to accelerate the
capsule to cruising speed. If this value is zero, it uses a binary
search method to find the optimal speed. The search interval is halved
at each iteration. At low speed, the cost of capsules dominates. At
high speed the cost of the approaches dominates.

Average
distance km traveled

Network
total length km

Thousand
passenger trips per workday

Billion
ton-km of cargo per year

Tube Diameter m and passenger seating width x length

Cargo/Passenger ratio

Capital Costs

Land acquisition cost
million

Network
cost million

Approaches
cost million (over estimate)

Station
cost million

Number
of capsules required to handle peak hour traffic.

Passenger
capsule
cost million

Number
of cargo capsules.

Cargo capsule cost million (over estimate)

Extra
airlocks

Total cost million

Number
of set of airlocks required to handle peak passenger traffic. Each mid
station requires at least four airlocks. Each airlock can handle 138 capsules per hour. Transiting
passengers will not need to go through airlocks. Stations that have multiple set of airlocks are less expensive because the approaches can be
combined. Stations that can handle cargo have vacuum storage facilities to store pallets waiting for shipping or pallets
outside waiting for collection.

Cost Factors

Cost
US$
of station per passenger per hour

Cost
US$
of each capsule

%
Inflation to apply to above two costs, which were calculated in 2015.

¢
per ton per km for shipping cargo. During the first year of
operation only cargo will be allowed.

¢
per km for pricing ticket

Steel
Price US$/ton * 4 (for support and construction cost)

* Average Distance = Maximum length of each tube segment

Price
of electricity in $/kwh

Wh/km/passenger

% Extra cargo capacity

Length of station approach m. Dedicated cargo stations requires less approach and are thus cheaper to build because the cargo can withstand higher G forces. An exiting capsule will decelerate before reaching the branch point so that it exits the branch point before the following vehicle is within the minimum distance. This model assumes a worst case scenario of 1 set of airlock

Income and Expenses

%
Passenger capacity used

Gross
annual income from workday passengers million

%
Cargo capacity used.

Gross
annual income from cargo million

Passenger
traffic at peak hour.

Energy
cost million

Liquid
Nitrogen cost million

% Operation
& Maintenance rate

Operation
and maintenance million

%
Insurance rate

Self
insurance/replacement fund million

%
Interest cost of funding.

Net
income million

Non-workdays passenger income are not counted.
Passengers fares are half price on weekends or public
holidays.

Ticket pricing for passenger
and cargo

The base price of a ticket to cover interest.

Currency
/ USD$

Distance or calculating ticket price and travel time.

Energy
surcharge factor

Price per pallet for cargo.

Travel Time

Price per trip.

Stations, capsules and tube sizing

Hours
in a local workday, use a value of 24 for a global network. The
expected number of passengers trips per workday is divided by this value
to determine the peak hour passenger
traffic that the network must be able to handle. Lower this number to
increase the number of stations and capsules. Spare network
capacity are used for cargo and low priority traffic.

Capsule
turnaround time in minutes. The time difference between its arrival at the
station to its departure for an empty capsule. Capsules will be sent to
where there are needed even if they are empty or partially filled.
Capsules will be waiting for passengers, not passengers waiting for
capsules.

The number of passengers that can be transported by each capsule in a day in one direction, the capsules are empty going in the return direction.

billion ton-km of cargo shipments per year. Cargo stations does not require airlocks and can handle capsules at